Police And Blacks, Seeing Threat, Close Ranks By Amanda Taub

The New York Times released A Social Reflex: Police and Blacks, Seeing Threat, Close Ranks, written by Amanda Taub in light of the recent Black Lives Matter movement. It focuses on a theory called Intergroup Threat Theory, which essentially explains why the individual shootings of Black Americans is having such a large effect on the Black population across America. Researchers, John Dovidio from the Intergroup Relations Lab at Yale University and Kimberly Rios, a psychology professor from Ohio University, are leading the way in analyzing these group dynamics and responses (Taub, 2016).
Dovidio has explained that our nature as social animals is driving these group divides. He said that when members of a specific social group feel threatened they close ranks with those they feel similar to. This directly relates to the Black Lives Matter movement in that the perceived threat, being police officers, are targeting Black Americans. This threat, in turn, has caused the Black…show more content…Rios’ and Dr. Dovidio’s research. There is no numerical data expressed, leading to the conclusion that observations and interviews were the majority of tactics used for information collection. The data is reliable to an extent because there is no possible way that the researchers could talk to a large percentage of African Americans in the US and ask how they have been affected by the recent shootings of black men and women. Most of the data talked about is taken from college students, which leads to a specific kind of bias in the data analysis process. In order to further their research, the researchers could potentially broaden their reach. Instead of solely focusing on Black groups in their areas, it would be much more accurate and could be generalized with more precision if the researchers talked to Black Lives Matter advocates and groups throughout the United States who are of all ages, education levels, genders, and cultural